TSR How Did I Survive AD&D? Fudging and Railroads, Apparently

[SteveC]

This is in contrast to another, old school (call it the "Strong Pulsipher" approach) where there is no thumb on the scale, and players can do what they want- and story or narrative is accidental and emergent.

I agreed with your post so much that I would give it a thousand likes if I could. I wanted to comment on this part because I just listened to a video discussing it. Derik from Knights of Last Call (which I can't recommend watching enough if you want to hear about different games from a guy who started with what I would call a D&D mentality but is in a very different place now) asked the question: can you have a session that's a perfect 10 without having some that are 1's?

The idea was that the perfect session would come almost as an accident from emergent play. When all the forces of the universe aligned correctly. The thought was that because there was no pre-determined story at all, many times, you'd get a garbage session that just wasn't fun at all. And I've lived that story. I've played with GMs who pretty much determined the game by random chance, encounter tables, and reaction rolls.

And I think these sessions are something I just can't put up with at this point in life. I played these games when I was single and in school or just starting work, and I had a lot of free time. At this point in my life, I am willing to have the best session be an 8 out of 10 if I don't have to put up with a train wreck. I just have too many important life responsibilities where I should be doing something else if I'm not really having a good time. Most of the sessions I play now have some buy-in required and a willingness to go with the GM. They can have a lot of player agency, but you can only go so far. And I've decided I'm okay with that if it means I never have to ask "what exactly are we doing here tonight?"

To me, that's the heart of the matter about railroading. There are degrees of it, of course, but I'm willing to go where the GM goes if we all have a good time.

 

[Zardnaar]

I agreed with your post so much that I would give it a thousand likes if I could. I wanted to comment on this part because I just listened to a video discussing it. Derik from Knights of Last Call (which I can't recommend watching enough if you want to hear about different games from a guy who started with what I would call a D&D mentality but is in a very different place now) asked the question: can you have a session that's a perfect 10 without having some that are 1's?

The idea was that the perfect session would come almost as an accident from emergent play. When all the forces of the universe aligned correctly. The thought was that because there was no pre-determined story at all, many times, you'd get a garbage session that just wasn't fun at all. And I've lived that story. I've played with GMs who pretty much determined the game by random chance, encounter tables, and reaction rolls.

And I think these sessions are something I just can't put up with at this point in life. I played these games when I was single and in school or just starting work, and I had a lot of free time. At this point in my life, I am willing to have the best session be an 8 out of 10 if I don't have to put up with a train wreck. I just have too many important life responsibilities where I should be doing something else if I'm not really having a good time. Most of the sessions I play now have some buy-in required and a willingness to go with the GM. They can have a lot of player agency, but you can only go so far. And I've decided I'm okay with that if it means I never have to ask "what exactly are we doing here tonight?"

To me, that's the heart of the matter about railroading. There are degrees of it, of course, but I'm willing to go where the GM goes if we all have a good time.

No such thing as a perfect session.

You can come close. I've had two recently and remember a few from older ones.

Mostly aim for 7 ir 8s. 10s you cant plan for right players, right time and something happens to make it all gel.

 

[SteveC]

No such thing as a perfect session.

You can come close. I've had two recently and remember a few from older ones.

Mostly aim for 7 ir 8s. 10s you cant plan for right players, right time and something happens to make it all gel.

Let's not get hung up on the semantics: the idea is that to get the very best scenario, you also have to risk having a really bad one. I've played in one of those where everything was random encounters and the dice came up great, combined with the right reaction rolls that led to a fantastic role playing encounter.

I've also played in a game (this was in college over the summer, so I had maximum free time) where we spent several sessions trying to find the dungeon while in the desert. I think we had two or three random encounters mixed in with working with survival and supplies over about a month. I also have played in many games where all of the encounters were way above expected challenge and we spent the session running away. A balanced set of encounters, and hand-waving "you spend three days looking for the entrance to the tomb, and you've found it." Yes please, in 2024.

 

[Zardnaar]

Let's not get hung up on the semantics: the idea is that to get the very best scenario, you also have to risk having a really bad one. I've played in one of those where everything was random encounters and the dice came up great, combined with the right reaction rolls that led to a fantastic role playing encounter.

I've also played in a game (this was in college over the summer, so I had maximum free time) where we spent several sessions trying to find the dungeon while in the desert. I think we had two or three random encounters mixed in with working with survival and supplies over about a month. I also have played in many games where all of the encounters were way above expected challenge and we spent the session running away. A balanced set of encounters, and hand-waving "you spend three days looking for the entrance to the tomb, and you've found it." Yes please, in 2024.

Those are very easy to avoid imho.

I'm like a giant sponge and I've been playing a lot of older adventures and reading good modules to figure out what they did right.

I'm running OSR very differently than 1999 anyway. Couldn't find a lot of the material back then.

Recently BG3. Starter sets, and 1E adventures have taught me new things. I'm also not that dogmatic on favored edition (I don't have one).

 

[S'mon]

This is likely an extreme example of railroading from a product line that’s already known for taking away player agency. But (and here’s the big question) … should we do it? Should we go back to this style of game?

It sounds terrible to me. I'd hate it. But you know your own group best. They enjoy railroads, yes? So it should be ok?

 

[Umbran]

You really nailed it here. There is a lot of frustration with D&D's fantasy RPG kit nature.

But the behavior we see isn't frustration about D&D's nature. It is tribalism based on the nature of the game we'd prefer to play.

This is supported by how people who have left (or were never part of) the D&D ecosystem still maintain the behaviors - folks who have moved into, say, OSR games and BitD still snipe at each other's playstyles.

 

[payn]

But the behavior we see isn't frustration about D&D's nature. It is tribalism based on the nature of the game we'd prefer to play.

This is supported by how people who have left (or were never part of) the D&D ecosystem still maintain the behaviors - folks who have moved into, say, OSR games and BitD still snipe at each other's playstyles.

It is cultural warfare indeed for many.

 

[Umbran]

It is cultural warfare indeed for many.

I think the term "cultural warfare" obfuscates the psychology often underlying the conflict, but close enough, I guess.

 

[Charlaquin]

But you had fun, right?

That would be the most important part for me. If everyone at my table is having a good time, I'm not going to worry about what people on the internet say about my dice rolling or storytelling methods. (shrug)

For all of my very strong and sometimes passionately stated preferences, I wholeheartedly agree that this is the most important thing. Your own group’s enjoyment of the game is really the only thing that matters at the end of the day. All the pontificating we do online is ultimately about suggesting what we think is most likely to result in the most fun at the table

 

[pemerton]

This kind of thing started with the Hickman Revolution and the Dragonlance modules.

The DL modules exemplify railroad-y storytelling. But as has been known in RPGing since the late 1980s, railroad-y storytelling is not the only way to get satisfying/epic story in RPGing.

Engaging, satisfying story and fair gameplay where players have agency are opposing forces. You have to pick one or the other.

<snip>

If you want epic stories, you have to ditch elements of gameplay to make that happen. You have to curate the experience and curtail player agency to some degree, usually quite a bit to force the game to unfold in something resembling a story.

<snip>

You have two incompatible options. 1) Play the game as a game and let the chips fall where they may, or; 2) play the "game" as a storytelling engine and curate the experience to facilitate something approaching the shape of a story.

There are more than two options. Even in the D&D-sphere of RPGs.

It's possible to play a game that has player agency and generates satisfying story. It just needs adopting techniques that differ both from Gygax's D&D and from the "storytelling" story approach described in the OP.

In the 4e D&D era, there were a lot of posts and threads on these boards discussing approaches to 4e play that set out some of these different techniques. Here's an example. And I know - from my own experience - that it is possible to approach AD&D in a similar sort of way, although AD&D is not as robust as 4e D&D.